One of the things I have enjoyed most about writing this blog is my periodic &ldquo;meet the ethanol producer&rdquo; posts. It started back in May, with a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/blog/article/2013/05/ah-the-smell-of-tuwo-or-ethanol-in-the-morning" target="_blank">blog about Nigerian Adamu Muhammad</a>, who now lives in Iowa and works at an ethanol plant.&nbsp;Now, I&rsquo;m writing about a U.S. ethanol plant employee that went to Mozambique, Africa, for two weeks this spring.
Matthew Dutka, currently works as operations manager at Golden Grain Energy LLC, in Mason City, Iowa. He has worked at the ethanol plant for nine years, starting off as the maintenance supervisor and becoming the operations manager in 2008.
His trip to Dondo, Mozambique, was to an <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/8810/sustainable-ethanol-cooking-fuel-plant-opens-in-mozambique" target="_blank">ICM Inc. designed and built cooking fuel ethanol plant</a>, which is part of CleanStar Mozambique&rsquo;s integrated food and energy business, a company formed in 2010 by Novozymes and CleanStar Ventures.&nbsp;Dutka went there to help improve plant operations. &ldquo;I did a little of everything; observing operations, look for ways to optimize operation, throughput, efficiencies, yield, trouble shoot equipment issues and some training,&rdquo; he said, adding that he worked with the crews and Richard Vanderzwan, plant manager. &ldquo;Not knowing what to expect when I got there I was shocked at how well they operated the entire process. The staff was well trained and well managed.&rdquo;
The people that worked at the plant seemed to be very happy and grateful to have a job. His impression was that working at the ethanol plant was a very good job in an area without many jobs available. On the retail side, the ethanol plant had the ability to produce more cooking fuel than what was at that time being sold. However, demand was building for the product. While he was there he did get to see a commercial for CleanStar Mozambique&rsquo;s cooking fuel but wasn&rsquo;t able to understand much because it was in Portuguese.
Comparing working at an ethanol plant in the U.S. to a facility in Africa, Dutka said there were some big differences. U.S. ethanol producers have a distinct resource advantage with many vendors competing for ethanol plants&rsquo; business. In Africa, it can take weeks to receive even a simple pump seal. &ldquo;Other differences are the lack of technology (no HPLC) and automation (no temp, pH, flow, or level control throughout the plant),&rdquo; he said. Still, he noticed some similarities to working at a U.S. ethanol plant as well. &ldquo;Amazingly enough a lot of their problems are the same that we have here in the states, just at different levels.&rdquo;
He also told about how the employees had constructed a tank out of flat stock stainless steel, something he found to be rather impressive. In addition, the plant had a GM V-8 Vortec turbo engine backup generator that runs on 160 proof ethanol, once it is started with 185 proof ethanol.&nbsp; &ldquo;Where is this engine in the states?&rdquo; he asked.
Typically, at this point I&rsquo;d include a pitch about how readers can nominate people that work at ethanol plants for a future &ldquo;meet the ethanol producer&rdquo; blog. However, since I&rsquo;m just about to start my maternity leave I may not get your email for a while. I&rsquo;ll keep blogging until my baby is born and then resume blogging about interesting ethanol producers and other topics after I return.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

A two-week trip to help out at an African cooking fuel ethanol plant yielded some interesting experiences. 

US producer takes trip to African ethanol plant

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